


lost times and hard hearts

by popoyoy11



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Hurt, Post episode 19, Season 2 spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:12:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7717840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popoyoy11/pseuds/popoyoy11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry lost his speed, and he contemplates.</p><p>(Set after episode 19 of season 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	lost times and hard hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I just binge-watched season two and felt things.

The city struggles awake, it crawls, fights its way to the surface for a single breath. The sun brings itself up, up, up, dragging last night’s tossed out goals and failed hopes out into the open for everyone to see. They suspend around him like invisible dust specs, Barry grabs his own from the air and keeps it in his pocket; his broken dreams are not meant for public consumption. He slugs through public commute of Central City with the morning crowd. They jostle him around in their quiet ignorance of his existence. Before, Barry appreciated the fresh morning air and all its cool glory. It used to bring a smile to his face when he felt it against his hair as he skidded to stops.

Now, the cold only bites his cheeks and nose, only good for hiding the sting in his eyes.

He has a Flash emblem pinned to the strap of his bag. A kid, William, gave it to him on last year’s Flash day. It’s a flimsy little thing that he doesn’t have the heart to throw away. When a child gives his hero a gift, they’re supposed to keep it, aren’t they? Even if Barry is anything but at the moment. He steps down from the bus and stops tapping his finger against his thigh. He thought he heard the cadence of accelerated footsteps and feels the lingering phantom of electricity in his legs. He tries, for the nth time that week, urges the scenery around him to blur, but there is nothing. Barry doesn't twitch. He doesn't take a deep breath and doesn't smell burning rubber and smoke drifting over the tarmac. Doesn't feel the heat of a residual burn in his limbs.

He looks up at the glaring sign of the coffee shop in front of him. Its gold arcs too bright, too optimistic, too much of a contrast against Barry's mood. He sees the giant clock on the wall and doesn't flinch.

It takes him twenty-two minutes to get to Jitters.

It takes him one thousand three hundred and sixty-three seconds to get to Jitters.

One million, three hundred and sixty-three thousand milliseconds.

(It used to take him only eighteen seconds.)

Barry is used to believing in the impossible. Somewhere along the line he became the impossible, then the impossible became his life. Two years is a short while for a life to be led, but he supposes it’s enough. (It has to be enough; otherwise Barry doesn’t understand what it is he’s doing right now, this not-life with no lightning bolts, no wind rushing past his ears, no streaking up buildings, no red pulsing in his veins, no adrenaline burning in his body—it has to be enough).

By now Barry is too used to having lightning under his fingernails, seeping from his skin, exploding behind his irises. Too used to having energy noiselessly buzzing beneath his skin. He never expected this giant hole in his life where the speed used to be. Never expected the emptiness to stretch so wide that it's swallowing him whole. And Barry, well, he does what he knows.

Barry runs.

(Ten and scared, running to his mom, to his dad, away from the rotten yellow in his house, away from the bullies, the memories--)

Barry runs.

(To Iris, to Joe, to a crime scene, his job, Starling city, his mother’s case that will never end—)

Barry runs.

(In red, in superspeed, the buildings passing by, blurring. After the man in yellow no, the reverse-flash, after his dad again, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, Eddie—)

Barry runs and he never wants to stop.

Barry runs.

Until he can’t anymore, and for the first time in two years, Barry feels the hardness of the concrete underneath his knees.


End file.
